EDITORIAL

Your hometown newspaper you are holding right now does not print pictures just because it has the pictures.

We try to balance the need to tell a story with reader sensibilities.

We are not perfect.

When we step over the line, readers let us know.

We get more complaints about sexy pictures than we get about violent pictures.

A few years ago, we published a picture on the front page of a traffic crash on Interstate 77 near the Kimbolton exit. Our policy is to not show victims dead bodies. That crash was in the winter and in the background of the picture was a white mound the photographer assumed was a pile of snow on the berm. As it turned out, that white mound was a tarp covering the body of a victim.

By publishing that picture, we hurt a family.

We also learned a lesson, and today we try to pay closer attention to every element in a picture, whether or not it is muted in the background.

The issue of accurately illustrating events without offending readers was felt in newsrooms across the country including this newsroom last week.

Gruesome pictures of the charred, mutilated bodies of Americans killed in an ambush in Iraq filled U.S. airwaves and were played prominently on Page 1 of many newspapers.

This newspaper decided to run a picture of an Iraqi boy cheering in front of the burning vehicle in Fallujah, though we did have more grisly images. We believed the picture of the boy jubilant over the deaths of Americans adequately told the story of the extent of the hatred in the hearts of people who have no respect for the sanctity of the dead.

The images out of Fallujah last week brought back memories of Mogadishu, Somalia, a decade ago. Pictures of a dead American serviceman being dragged through the street aired constantly on U.S. television and were published in newspapers across the country. Those images ultimately led to the evacuation of U.S. forces from Somalia.

A network news executive said last week, This is a tough one. There is a question of respect for the families and loved ones of those who were killed. There is also a question of taste. But that also raises the question of whether, or how, images should be sanitized. War is a horrible thing. It is about killing.

We cant always project readers reactions to pictures we publish. And if we worry about it too much, we risk going against the principle of reporting what is really happening, as sickening and barbaric as it may be.

Well continue to try our best to use good judgment, fully expecting that evil will tarnish the images ahead.